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Forums - Discs & Movies - Thoughts on Blu-Ray/HD-DVD

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I disagree Matt. Most people already have sets that cost thousands of dollars and at best display 1080i or 720p. They aren't going to care whether the players are capable of displaying 1080p because they have no plans on buying a new TV capable of displaying 1080p. (This has to be what the manufactures are thinking at this point.)

Yes, there are many true HD sets on the market right now that display up to 1080p, which is quickly becoming the standard with virtually every new set coming out this year providing it. I'm sure movies on these new HD-DVD players look great, but why would you purchase something that is already behind the current televisions on the market, not to mention that the discs released with the launch of these players themselves are put out at 1080p. At these initial prices, it's best to wait until the next wave of these players are released so as not to buy something you'll regret two months from now when better players are avialable or next year when you buy a set that does put out 1080p.

I don't think 1080p is going to do many people much good right now. I didn't even know they were making 1080p sets yet. While progressive scan is usually better than interlaced, I wonder if you can really tell the difference visually. I can't imagine that it gets much better than the HD signals I am already getting.

Also, a good deal of HD sets do not display 1080i at all. The DLPs "convert" (you can decide whether it is a down convert or not) to 720p to display or maybe it is 768p, but still way under the 1080 lines of vertical resolution.

The first two of Toshiba's HD-DVD players (HD-XA1 and HD-A1) downscale 1080p to 1080i, so no, there isn't any 1080p output from these players. What a joke...you'd be a fool to slap down $500/$800 on one of these since they're already obsolete with 1080p HDTVs having been introduced to the market months ago.

Yeah, I can't believe The Terminator is a launch title. I noticed that the HD player in this weeks Best Buy ad says 1080i capabilities rather than 1080p. either a typo or a freaking waste of 500 bucks.

Some day I'll upgrade, but only certain titles, half of Luco Fulci's catalogue already looks too clean on DVD, it'd ruin it to watch it in true HD.

Matt has the right idea. I'll just go make moot comments somewhere else.

I don't know about fringe stuff like that, but I think you'll eventually see a lot of television programming put on HD discs, though not necessarily with an upgrade to high definition video. There are a lot of current television boxsets that could be placed on a single Blu-Ray disc, lowering packaging and reproduction costs than what is currently available. You could also eventually see movie collections made the same way, such as placing all of the Dirty Harry movies on one disc while keeping the 720x480 resolution of the current DVD video. It's too early to tell what direction the market for BD or HD movies will take, but it could happen. Personally I can't see myself re-purchasing over 5% (which is a stretch at that) of what I currently have on DVD, and pretty much any that I do will be newer films...with a few exceptions made for stuff like Star Wars, Blade Runner, etc..

I've just read Gabe's review of the Super Mario Bros Super Show and it got me thinking...

Can you really see this type of thing being re-released in a HD format in another 5-10 years' time?

I'm going to make a prediction that HD formats will only be a modest success once the price comes down in about 1-2 years' time and the real watershed in home entertainment will be when we get nationwide rollouts of on-demand DVD quality broadcasts, including archives of stuff like Super Mario Bros available 24x7.

Any thoughts?

I will of course stand by this prediction until I'm proved compeltely wrong.